Sometimes called the “Sermon in the Grove,” this speech is the last of the Sunday sermons of JS.
I really don’t have too much to say about this right now except that the manuscript evidence is fascinating. Of course you’re reading a text geek here. The manuscript development up to publication in the Deseret News is just downright cool. The variants after that are interesting to me, but the fun part so far is in 1844 and 1855-6. I think that this will result in some changes in the way we see this discourse and its content as a Church (ok, that’s probably over-stepping things, but it is fun stuff). Anyway, it’s a very interesting text and I promise to display some of this as I get things more settled with the gene-critical stuff. Over at BCC I’m going to put up some of the genetic text for KFD2 (King Follett sermon to you) or KFD1, sometime after things die down over there.

In the spirit of rehashing old ground (former posts), I offer you the following on Lorenzo Barnes. Barnes was an Ohio period convert to Mormonism and a perennial missionary for the Church from that time until his death in late 1842 while in missionary service in England. Barnes’ was in some sense a kind of ordinary Mormon, not one who found place among central Church leadership. Barnes’ personal life is largely unknown, but a budding romance caught the eye of several, including Wilford Woodruff who kept track Barnes’ lost love in order to reminisce.

As far as this post is concerned, Lorenzo Barnes is in the spotlight because Joseph Smith offered memorial remarks in his behalf when the news of Barnes’ death reach Nauvoo and hence Barnes gets a chapter in our book. The sermon drives Lorenzo’s history — after his death! Take a look at our first post about Lorenzo:

The actor suits the action to the word, and the word to the action. His looks, his hands, his attitudes, and everything, are designed to express the full meaning of the writer. Now, this should be the aim of the preacher . . . the more theatrical the sermon is, the better.[1]

Nathan Bennett Baldwin was born in Grenville, “Upper Canada” in 1812. He joined the Church of Christ (later The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) April 28, 1833. He journeyed with “Zions Camp.” Baldwin was selected as a member of the first quorum of Seventy (Feb. 25, 1835). He received the Nauvoo endowment Jan. 3, 1846. Nathan Baldwin came west as a pioneer and eventually settled in southern Utah.Read more of this post